Good morning, this is John McCain, speaking to you at the end of an eventful week in the presidential campaign. All the talk today is about my opponents selection of his running mate. To his new running mate, my congratulations and Ill get back to you real soon on your debating opponent.

The week began with a debate of sorts between Senator Obama and me at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. In case you missed it, the discussion yielded the line of the week, and maybe even of the campaign, when Pastor Rick Warren asked my opponent a very serious question. He wanted to know at what point, in my opponents view, does a baby have human rights? Senator Obama thought about it for a moment, and came back with the reply that the question was, quote, above my pay grade.

Here was a candidate for the presidency of the United States, asked for his position on one of the central moral and legal questions of our time, and this was the best he could offer: Its above his pay grade. He went on to assure his interviewer that there is a, quote, moral and ethical element to this issue. Americans expect more of their leaders.

There seems to be a pattern here in my opponents approach to many hard issues. Whether its the surge in Iraq that has brought us near to victory, or the issue of campaign reform, or the question of offshore drilling, Senator Obamas speeches can be impressive. But when its time for straight answers, clear conviction, and decisive action, suddenly all of these responsibilities are  well, as he puts it, above my pay grade. As mottos of leadership go, it doesnt exactly have the ring of the buck stops here.

Often, too, Senator Obamas carefully hedged answers obscure more than they explain, and this was the case in his conversation with Rick Warren. Listening to my opponent at Saddleback, you would never know that this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue. He is against parental notification laws, and against restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortions. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation to prevent the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion. Senator Obama opposed that bill, voting against it in committee and voting present on the Senate floor.

In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for babies who survive abortions  living, breathing babies whom Senator Obama described as, quote, previable. This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law, and Barack Obama voted against it.

At Saddleback, he assured a reporter that hed have voted yes on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Even though the language of both the state and federal bills was identical, Senator Obama said people were, quote, lying about his record. When that record was later produced, he dropped the subject but didnt withdraw the slander. And now even Senator Obamas campaign has conceded that his claims and accusations were false.

For a man who talks so often about hope, Senator Obama doesnt offer much of it in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. His extreme advocacy in favor of partial birth abortion and his refusal to provide medical care for babies surviving abortion should be of grave concern to reasonable people of goodwill on both sides of this issue. There is a growing consensus in America that we need to overcome narrow partisanship on this issue for both women in need and the unborn. We need more of the compassion and moral idealism that my opponents own party, at its best, once stood for. No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection.

Upholding these principles, and bringing Americans together on the side of life, is the work of leadership. And I can assure you that if I am president, advancing the cause of life will not be above my pay grade. Thanks for listening.

McCain is Pro-Life. This is not a surprise. McCain must choose a Pro-Life running mate that never voted to increase abortions ever. That leaves out Romney so who will it be? We don’t need any blurring of the lines. We need a conservative that didn’t discover principles in his fifties.

30
posted on 08/23/2008 8:20:02 AM PDT
by Maelstorm
(This country was not founded with the battle cry "Give me liberty or give me a government check!")

"We have Christians of every stripe, Catholic and protestant (Methodists, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Evangelical etc.) who consistently vote for pro-abortion politicians."

The following are my observations:

1) Perhaps they do not believe Psalm 139.

2) Perhaps they do not see that their own liberties, as individual citizens, are placed at risk when the liberty of the child in the womb to live is denied by force.

3) Perhaps they do not really think about the implications of the absurdity that one class of citizens (women) are legally protected in a so-called "right" to choose whether another human being lives or dies by the "hand of force."

4) Perhaps they never considered that the claim of the phrase, "endowed by their Creator," in the Founders' Declaration of Independence actually formed the founding principle underlying our Constitution's protections. That principle was succinctly capsulized by Thomas Jefferson: "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

What clearer statement can be made on behalf of human liberty?

As late as 196l, John F. Kennedy summed up the same principle:

"The world is different now . . . And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forefathers fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."

The "life" question for this election should be framed in such a manner that citizens can understand that our heritage of liberty has its basis in that very question, and that the "hand of force" may not necessarily be a totalitarian government's army, or even a terrorist attack.

McCain is not the only person who has a problem with Obama's stand on abortion. In my opinion, this issue, will shift the course of McCain's campaign. It will also cause a majority of Americans to vote for McCain.

Maelstorm wrote that Romney's change of heart would make him a weaker VP candidate. Perhaps so, if it's just left at that!

On the other hand, if he can articulate well the process by which he rethought the "pro-choice" position and decided in favor of life, then he might be the very strongest candidate of all.

Consider the potential effectiveness of a former smoker who speaks out about the dangers of smoking, based on his/her own experience, versus that of a lifetime non-smoker who may simply come off as a "do-gooder."

Were Romney the candidate, he needs to articulate a vision of life and liberty as being so entertwined that when the life of one innocent is left to "choice," then the life and liberty of each is endangered. After all, who's to say that the next class of citizens allowed the so-called "right to choose" might be the man or woman who finds the care of an elderly parent to be endangering to his/her health or happiness?

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